amateurs de thé chinois

Teamaster's and Toptea Hongshui

2009-05-14T04:21:00.000-07:00

Hongshui oolong is a style of tea created on the island of Taiwan by mixing Anxi and Wuyi processing techniques. They are ball shaped (like Anxi oolong) but more oxidized (Wuyi oolong) and not as heavily roasted (Anxi oolong). I read this information on the Houde blog here, and it sounds believable. However, in the past I think more oxidization and heavier roasting was more common in Anxi than it is today.

Terence, a tea friend of mine has sent me three different samples of Hongshui, the first I believe was from Houde, and I liked it. But, if I remember correctly it was only one session worth a couple of months ago. Later, after I expressed interest in the Hongshui, Terence sent very generous packages of Hongshui from Teamasters, and Toptea.

The Teamasters Hongshui is from Dongding, it is ruanzhi cultivar, and was plucked in November, 2008. The dry leaf is dark, black and green, and very shiny. The photograph below shows the leaf resting after a flash rinse.

I decided to compare the two teas from Teamasters and Toptea in order to gain some insight into Hongshui. I preheated glass mugs, added about two grams of each tea and infused them in about 75 ml of water for 6 minutes. I also compared a Spring 2008 Classic Dongding at the same time because both Teamaster's teas I had on hand were from Dongding.

I found the Toptea Hongshui darker, and thinner in the mouth. A pleasant fruity flavor, but the huigan was very weak. The Teamasters Hongshui was astringent, cloyingly sweet, and not as pleasant as the Toptea after 6 minutes, but the huigan was very pronounced. When brewed properly, this tea would have a lot to offer. The Dongding was darker, with slightly less huigan, but very intriguing to me personally because of an intense cardamom or mace aroma/taste. It was very hard to pin down exactly, but it reminded me of my father's recipe for mulled cider. I even had hints of cinnamon, but not pungent like cinnamon usually is.

In a comparitive tasting with two gaiwan, I used relatively fewer leaves brewing the Teamasters than with the Toptea. I still found it darker, but thinner in the mouth and with an almost unnoticable huigan compared to the Teamasters. It seemed that the Toptea had a higher oxidation which would explain the darker soup. A more thorough roast would explain the lack of any astringency. Perhaps a more thorough roast would also explain the thinness and lack of huigan, although I am not certain. I am not certain of the prices of any of these teas, as they were gifts, but The Teamasters Hongshui certainly had more to offer.

I later brewed the Teamasters in a zini ball shaped pot which I use for Taiwan oolong. A couple of days later after the pot had dried, I could still smell the distinctive aroma of the Hongshui.

In the first two infusions, there is a mild roasted taste, and a very distinctive hickory flavour. The tea is very sweet when not over infused. The above picture is from the second infusion.

By the fourth infusion pictured above, the roast taste was no longer present.The hickory began to relax by the fifth infusion. By the seventh infusion 4 minutes produced a weak cup, but up until the sixth (pictured below) that powerfuly sweet huigan was still present.

I was impressed by this tea. It has a great huigan, and a good roast, that is noticeable, but that did not affect the tea adversely. In my opinion, one must be careful when brewing this tea because the roast did not penetrate the middle of the leaf fully, so too much leaf or over-infusion will make it cloyingly sweet. This Hongshui tea soup was lighter in color than the other two I have tried, and may be lightly oxidized by Hongshui standards. In Phyll's blog, you can find an excellent picture of a more oxidized 2006 Hongshui also from Teamasters.

Lipton Tea Now Rainforest Friendly

2009-05-07T01:24:00.000-07:00

Lipton, a brand owned by Unilever is in the process of having all of it's tea certified rainforest friendly. This doesn't mean much to me personally, but some of the figures quoted by the article in The Guardian were pretty amazing.

"Unilever, a European based Anglo-Dutch food and household products maker ... accounts for about 12 percent of the world's tea..."

Read the rest of the article here.

Hongshui and Taiwan Oolong Education

2009-04-29T00:44:00.000-07:00

Let me start out by saying that I have tried a lot of "Taiwan Oolong" teas. However in the past few weeks I have realized that I don't know as much about Taiwan Oolong as one ought to after trying so many. My latest sojourn in China has lasted almost two years at this point, and I have had a few different Dongdings, Alishans, Dongfangmeiren, a Guifeicha and countless high mountain oolongs and many just marked "Taiwan syle oolong."

Late last year, I began trading teas with a couple of people in North America, and one of my tea friends Terence seems to have taken it upon himself to provide me an education in Taiwan oolong. I don't mean to sound facetious, as I am sure this wasn't premeditated, but it is what he acheived.

In addition to many other nice oolongs that Terence sent, he ordered me a Dongding Classic and a Hongshui from Teamasters. I opened the Dongding as soon as it arrived, and the first brewing was quite enjoyable. I had never had such an oxydized dongding before, and had never really understood what made Dongding teas special at all (one of the pitfalls of drinking fake TW oolong thats really from Fujian.) However, I quickly lost interest in the Dongding because I believed I had ruined it by not sealing it properly. Everytime it was infused it was overbearingly sour and so cloyingly sweet I would get a stomachache.

In general I noticed that many of the teas tasted like they had absorbed a lot of water and often tasted very sour compared to the "Taiwan" teas I had enjoyed previously. I tried roasting in my rice cooker and even a little pan frying to liven things up. Finally, while perusing some ancient entries in MarshalN's web log I read through a post about Taiwan oolong which helped to explain my conundrum. Taiwan ball shaped oolong is generally tighter than their Fujian counterpart. The roasting, therefore, cannot penetrate as easily to the center of the ball. Anxi oolongs usually have the stems removed and each ball is one individual leaf. Taiwan oolongs include the stem and many larger balls are made up of two leaves and a bud. The stem can also influence the taste of a tea, often adding mouthfeel; but will absorb water easily and can cause a sour taste.

When I finally put all the pieces together I began to brew these oolongs less agressively. I used less leaf and was careful not to overbrew, and I began to finally capture the fleeting and elusive tastes I had been only able to extract rarely from so many of these teas. I habitually drink Yancha, like a lot of leaf and don't mind an overbrew, but can't stand a weak cup. To brew my newfound Taiwanese teas, almost opposite parameters were required, and this also helped me to pay more attention to Yancha brewing and overbrew less. I began to get eight infusions where previously I was getting only three. Strong Yancha is still a personal favorite, but exploring a tea in all of its potential can be quite satisfying.

The next entry in this web log will attempt to compare Teamaster's Dongding Hongshui from October, 2008 with two other teas.

2009 Yancha Harvest Has Started

2009-04-23T00:14:00.000-07:00

4月21日，福建省武夷山市的茶农肩挑装满春茶的箩筐。

A tea picker with baskets full of the spring tea harvest in Wuyishan, Fujian province.

连日来当地气温不断上升，往年5月开始批量采摘的武夷岩茶大红袍今年4月下半月就已进入采摘高峰期。

Each day the local temperature is rising steadily. Last year the tea harvest started in earnest in May, This year in the second half of April the harvest is already in full swing.

4月21日，在福建省武夷山市天心村，茶农在采摘武夷岩茶大红袍。

Pickers harvesting Dahongpao in Tianxin village.

4月21日，福建省武夷山茶农利用晴好天气纷纷上山采摘武夷岩茶。

Tea pickers taking advantage of the clear weather to pick tea in the mountains.

Original article from Xinhua news
http://www.fj.xinhuanet.com/ntp/2009-04/22/content_16319312.htm

Shanghai Yuyuan Garden Tea Festival

2009-04-20T22:32:00.000-07:00

A short video in English about Shanghai's Yuyuan Garden Tea Festival. Not very informative, but enough to make me wish I was there.

Chaozhou Style Tea Stove

2009-04-19T03:28:00.000-07:00

My tea stove for Chaozhou style Gongfu tea arrived by courier this Friday. I was so happy when it finally arrived that I fired it up right away, and made a huge mess in my mother in law's kitchen. I remember a thread on Teachat where someone asked if you could use one of these things inside. The answer is certainly not. They don't burn very well without lots of fanning which blows ashes everywhere. (Below is a picture of my stove in the process of covering my mother in law's kitchen in a thick coat of ash.)

One thing I did not realize about these thing is how hard they these stoves are to get going. Perhaps mine has a bad draught, but it took me over an hour to get water boiling. This is hard for me to admit because I pride myself at being good at burning things. The second time I got the fire going faster by making a tool to get the charcoal started. I put a wire handle on a can and poked big holes in the bottom. The olive pit charcoal goes into the can which is then held over a gas stove burner.

This stove was originally sold as an alcohol lamp setup with the option to add a clay center which holds the charcoal which can be seen behind the dollar bill in the first picture. Unfortunately the outer stove cracked because of the high heat. I considered trying to get a replacement, but I think I will find a proper charcoal stove or just wait until I go to Chaozhou where they should be plentiful and cheap. (Cracked stove pictured below)

The kettle is small, about 500 ml, but it is enough when doing Gongfucha with a very small pot. If you go above 100 ml pot, you can only get about 2 infusions and then you have to wait another half an hour for the water to boil. I used cold water for the first kettle, and then used pre-boiled water from an insulated bottle for subsequent kettles. The mouth of spout is very small which I didn't like at first, but it allows for very accurate pouring. The name of the designer is stamped between the spout and handle.

I like the side handle on this kettle, it seems well designed and allows for comfortable pouring. The knob on the lid is very thin and stays cool enough to touch even when the kettle has been boiling for awhile. The lid is very thin and flat and seems very delicate. I am afraid it would fall off when pouring if not held on. Besides the lid, my only other problem with the kettle is that it seems to have some sort of light glaze. The bottom of the outside of the kettle seems to be glaze free, but there is some glaze on the inside of the kettle. In the picture below, the line where the glaze ends on the inside is visible. It looks like part of the bottom is wet, and part is dry. It is actually all wet, the darker area is the 'glaze.' The glaze is very thin and does not really look like most glazes, so it may be something else as I am not familiar with pottery and ceramics. Glaze is mostly an issue because the olive pit charcoal smoke supposedly imparts some of it's characteristics on the water in the kettle. Perhaps this is just sales pitch to move Olive pit charcoal at 10 USD per pound.

Of course the most important question is how much difference all this equipment makes on the final product. Despite all the bother and mess, I was not disappointed. I brewed my GuShuCha, or Ancient tree tea which I bought from Mrs. Yu in Wuyishan, and was well pleased. This tea had a better mouth feel, was significantly sweeter and the Yanyun (岩韵）was more pronounced. I especially noticed a difference in the Chaqi, both in the head and stomach. I have consumed about a half pound of this tea in the past few months, and tried it with water from a spring, bottled waters, filtered waters and water boiled with bamboo charcoal; but the tea was far more enjoyable steeped in untreated tap water boiled in this stove. I also used a brand new unseasoned (Dahongpao)Zhuni pot.

I also tried the April 2008 Fenghuang Dongding Classic from Teamasters. This tea was also more enjoyable when brewed in a gaiwan with water heated on the stove. Unfortunately I had previously ruined this delightful tea by not sealing it properly. It was quite nice before I let it absorb moisture.

In conclusion, these stoves seem to make a difference in the quality of the water. They are quite fun to play with, and the patient will enjoy brewing tea with these. I now fully understand why according to the traditional Chaozhou gongfu rules, a stove is placed seven steps from the tea set. With overenthusiastic fanning, guests would be covered in ash. I also read that when a gentleman constructs a tea house, he ought to hire a servant boy to clean up and help make tea. I fully endorse this suggestion. I don't see myself a gracious enough host to entertain guests with erudite references to the classics while sweating over a tiny stove seven steps away slowly becoming coated in ash. I shall hire a servant boy immediately.

Zhejiang (and Guizhou) Green Teas

2009-04-19T01:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I had a great tea day. I went to my friend's shop because he had some tea merchants from Lishui (a prefecture level division of Zhejiang province) at his shop. They brought Anji Baicha, Xihu Longjing and Wuniuzao in large boxes and bags, altogether there must have about 200 pounds of tea. I took a blurry picture of all the boxes of tea which I won't post. (Below is a photo of some tea samples. The larger green leaves[upper left] are 'Anji baicha,' the other two are 'Wuniuzao.')

I really liked the white tea that they brought, although I thought it tasted a lot like green tea. Finally I realized that what they meant by 'baicha' was actually 'Anji baicha,' which is just a green tea from Anji in Zhejiang that is called white tea. (Pictured below)

I drank about 4 different varieties of tea, and they were all enjoyable as green tea always is when it is new. (Pictured below is one of their 'wuniuzao' teas)

Of course, none of the teas were actually grown in the areas they were supposed to have been grown in. All were grown and processed in Lishui. It is very hard to sell green tea for a good price in many places in China if it is not a famous name. I don't drink enough green tea to really be able to tell just by looking that these teas were not real, and they still tasted good. I did notice that the tea they were calling 'Wuniuzao' did not have the dark fat 'posterior' which is common to first flush teas of that varietal.

On Friday I looked in on a new tea shop opening up near my friends, they sell only green tea from Guizhou. I tried some of their most expensive tea which was called Cuiya (翠芽, emerald buds or emerald shoots.) It was a very well made green using only very short buds, no leaves. The firing was also done well as the buds almost all stood upright at the bottom of the glass. I usually like to drink a lower end green tea with leaf/bud sets as they have a more robust flavor, but this tea had a rather full flavor. It was slightly hard to enjoy as they were still remodelling and the whole place stank of paint.

The Guizhou shop also used a lot of big names like Biluochun, Zhuyeqing, etc. They said this was just a way to describe the processing method and not an attempt at tricking people. They hadn't stocked all their teas yet so I couldn't check them all out.

2009-02-18T20:54:00.000-08:00

A Heap of Tea

2009-02-08T21:00:00.000-08:00

This past October I made a trip to Wuyishan and bought a fair amount of tea, which in the past few months has been almost completely consumed. It was clearly time to order more.

I have been meeting lots of nice tea people online, and some of us got together to make a group purchase. The Yancha on the counter here is about 12 kilograms of Beidou #1 and Laocong Shuixian. The roast is pretty heavy at the moment, but ought to relax nicely in the next month. All told, the roasting at this tea factory is pretty good, but there was a sample of Shuijingui which got burned. I recommend over roasting a small portion of stale tea to anyone who has never done it, because I can't describe the flavour and even if its slight, it never goes away and its very different from a heavy roast.

The Ninth Eccentric of Yangzhou

2009-01-19T05:47:00.000-08:00

Walk from Yixing number one factory past the gate of the number two factory, and then cross the street. The studio of the 'Ninth Eccentric of Yangzhou' is two small rooms slightly below the level of the street. There is an eccentric mix of not so old antiques, and dusty paintings hung so close together that the edges are frayed. Two bird cages hang near the door, from the bottom of one of these hangs a tiny fighting cricket cage with the dried carpace of a formerly large cricket.

The "Eight Eccentrics of Yangzhou" were eight scholars and artists from Yangzhou, Jiangsu province. The Ninth Eccentric is certainly an artist. The casual observer recognizes this fact immediately as he wears two scarves, a velveteen suit jacket, long hair and a goatee.

This artist's paintings were not very appealing to me in terms of style, but his Yixing carving was some of the best I have seen in Yixing. I selected a tea canister and a small tray which I use for gongfucha. It is not my intention to come across overly sarcastic in my description. The workshop was cold, the paintings not to my liking, and the artist himself likable and strange at the same time. There was an overabundance of Mao era memorabilia and "antiques" of this kind. At the same time he reminds me of the old books describing Yangxian (Yixing) pots. They werethe product of a co-operation of potters and scholars who would carve a line on the pots, or design their ideal tea pot and press their chop underneath it. This 9th Eccentric of Yangzhou truly creates some beautiful Yixing artwork

Tea in Winter

2009-01-16T23:43:00.001-08:00

A heavy frost will damage the crop.

But a light frost will improve the flavour of next spring's tea.

Tea flowers have opened and wilted already.

The view over a tiny tea field down into the valley. The frost melts quickly under the direct sun, while frost it the shade lasts until late in the day

When climbing in the hills, one cannot always stop to boil water, but holding a few tender buds in the mouth refreshes the spirit as well as weary feet. Frost covered buds were sweeter and more fragrant.

My Trip to Yixing

2009-01-09T18:44:00.000-08:00

Last week I went to Yixing for 7 days. I think this time of year was probably the best time to go to Yixing, as no one else was there! The busiest time of the year is in March and April. In case anyone else is planning to go, the place to shop for pots is not in the center of the city of Yixing, but in the town of Ding Shan which is part of the county of Yixing, but lies 14 kilometers from the city center. Entering Dingshan by bus, one is impressed by how devoted they whole place is to earthenware clay. The most striking part of the landscape is the profusion of abandoned gas stations. Remarkably tall domed pavilions were erected over the pumps. Many over 20 meters tall. The large paved areas of these old filling stations have all been commandeered as storage facilities for oxidizing the rock that will be crushed for Yixing clay.

Ding Shan would be a miserable place to spend a week if you didn't like teapots, or at least some sort of earthenware or ceramics. For example: flowerpots and large jars. The main attractions of Ding Shan besides the shopping are the Yixing factories number one and two, the Yixing museum and the place where famous Song dynasty poet Su Dongpo went to school.

Stone Marker with Dongpo written on it

Previously, the Yixing ware shops were spread around all parts of the town of Yixing. There was a large market across from the museum, which is almost abandoned now, however many artists keep studios on the grounds adjacent to the museum. There is also a market next to the bus station and many shops on Jiefang Rd. Probably the most expensive place to buy a pot are the shops inside the grounds of Factory number one. I expect prices are so high there because rent is too. There are lots of decent shops near factory number one as well.

In the past few years people have been moving slowly buy surely to the new ceramic market. This is a very large area full of shops which specialize in Yixing and nothing else. The new market has at least 8 sections. Each section has roughly 20 buildings, and each building has around 10-20 shops depending on the size of the individual building and of the shops.

The New Market

The new market has shops which deal only in Yixing teapots, with a few selling tea and other tea supplies. There are barely enough restaurants, convenient stores and hotels to keep one alive though ones pot shopping experience. I stayed in a hotel within district H. There was a computer in the room, and the place was new so I was very pleased at 120 RMB per night.

Yixing was a great place to explore, I felt a week was not quite enough, but I did waste a lot of time helping a friend purchase supplies for his retail outlet. We saw the sights within Yixing, but did not explore any of the beautiful countryside beyond.

Shrinkage in Zhuni Pots

2009-01-09T08:08:00.000-08:00

I know zhuni shrinks a lot, but I never realized how dramatic it really is. A picture I took in Yixing illustrates this more succinctly than I ever could in words. On the right is the raw zhuni pot and on the left is the fired one. They are from the same mold.

I was talking to a potter who told me fake wrinkles were made on zhuni pots by pressing toilet paper onto the unfired clay. Below are pictures of the toilet paper supposedly used to fake the wrinkes.

Toilet paper texture

This toilet paper is a lot different than what I grew up with and is not super soft. I thought other Americans might not understand using toilet paper to fake zhuni, but it really does remind me of zhuni wrinkles.

Toilet paper packaging

Chao-Shan Gongfu Cha

2008-12-27T07:03:00.000-08:00

I translated an essay on Chaozhou gongfucha from Chinese, finished today and posted it on Teadrunk.org. The style is a bit chatty, and sometimes too verbose, but I did learn a couple of interesting things from it, the most prominent in my mind being the explaination of the distance between the stove and the tea service. Traditionally, the small stove is kept seven steps away for both aesthetic -- the sound of water heating can be heard, but the device is not seen -- and practical reasons.

The four treasures are also expounded upon, which ought to prove fruitful search terms for further research, and we even learn one term in the local dialect - 冇炭 - which means "extinguishing the charcoal." Anything with Cantonese characters gets me excited.

If anyone is interested, the translation can be read here. The link to the original article is posted at the top of the thread.

2008-12-26T06:26:00.000-08:00

In celebration of my new seal. Nothing goes better with tea than calligraphy.

My new love is matcha. I bought a Chinese chawan for 8 USD, but didn't like Chinese matcha, and had to get some from Japan. The dried tea leaves in the photo were collected in Wenzhou, Zhenghe and Wuyi.

Organic Tea Garden

2008-11-20T17:36:00.000-08:00

This past weekend I visited an organic tea garden near Yantou town, Yongjia County, Wenzhou prefecture. The elevation was around 600 meters, which is high for the area. I like an organic farm at the top of a mountain because there's no chance of pesticide runoff from other farms. The second picture is of a newly planted area, therefore it is not so nice looking. The grow the wuniuzao varietal which is made into green tea.

Guangyun Gong Is No Longer Pu'er

2008-11-09T00:22:00.000-08:00

I translated an article about new regulations on using the name Pu'er. As the title of the article states, the famous Guangyun Gong recipe of the Guangdong Import Export Company can no longer be called pu'er under these regulations. To read the full translation of the article please visit this link.

Interesting Tea Forum

2008-11-08T04:25:00.000-08:00

I found a defunct tea forum in the course of my Inter-web surfing. Many of the posts are of limited interest, but the owner of the forum seems to have posted numerous translations of tea poems and other tea literature from various periods.

Translations of this type of work in English are very rare, and I was quite pleased to find this resource.

Speaking of tea poetry, I have decided to post my translations on my other blog instead of on this one. My other blog is also accesible through my profile.

More TGY

2008-11-07T05:56:00.000-08:00

The God Of Tea was not pleased when I mouthed off last week and slandered TGY, so he punished me in a cruel way. I had to taste samples sent from vendors with my friend for about 3 days last week. This top picture is what the tea tray looked like when I arrived, the picture at the end is what it looked like about half an hour later (with a clean up in between).

My tea friend sent me a bunch of samples of heavily roasted TGY, which I don't really have the experience to enjoy yet. Some of the roasts were very strong, I haven't had a moderate TGY yet. On the other hand, I haven't tried them all. There were some really exceptional examples of other teas, though.

I would like to recant some of what I said last week about not liking green TGY. It can be very nice, especially when its fresh and high quality. I guess what I take exception to about TGY is more the people around here who drink it than the tea itself. When I walk into a shop they always ask if I'd like some TGY. It's always going to be cheap tea, and they don't really have anything else to offer. When I ask for something else they keep pushing TGY.

Last Sunday a man from Anxi came to my friend's shop to sell us TGY. We were alone, and to make conversation I asked if he drank any other teas. He told me that not only his whole family, but everyone in China who knows anything about tea prefers TGY, especially in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangdong province. I just didn't say anything because I tend to react to such tea chauvinism a bit too strongly.

Song of Seven Cups

2008-11-07T05:24:00.000-08:00

This is one of the most well know tea poems which I use to practice calligraphy. I translate the poem below.

"Song of Seven Cups" from the poem: "Taking Up the Pen to Thank Mèng Jiànyì for Sending New Tea"

by Lú Tóng of the Táng Dynasty

One bowl moistens the lips and throat;
Two bowls shatters loneliness and melancholy;
Three bowls, thinking hard, one produces five thousand volumes;
Four bowls, lightly sweating, the troubles of a lifetime disperse towards the pores.
Five bowls cleanses muscles and tendons;
Six bowls opens the realm of spirit;
One cannot finish the seventh bowl, but feels only a light breeze spring up under the arms.

Menghai Pu'er Factory Celebrates 68th Anniversary

2008-11-04T06:53:00.001-08:00

Today I translated part of a Chinese language news article about the 68th Anniversary of Yunnan's Menghai Pu'er factory and posted it to Teadrunk.org. The translation can be viewed here.

Teadrunk Forum

2008-11-02T03:25:00.000-08:00

A tea friend has just started a new online forum for online chatting about Japanese and Chinese teas and teaware.

TeaDrunk.org

There are not many users or posts yet, but this blogger supports teadrunk.org wholeheartedly.

威廉。雅德利，祝你和你茶醉论坛圆满成功。茶醉万岁万岁万万岁！

Tieguanyin Fall Tea

2008-10-20T06:04:00.000-07:00

A friend just got back from Anxi where he was purchased TGY for his shop. In tea shops around the country you will see simiilar scenes; not so much the disorder as the stripping the TGY off the twigs and sorting out the huangpian. This process is not very difficult as far as I can tell, but there are a couple of things which must be kept in mind. Discard the leaves with heavy insect damage (sometimes you can find leaves that look like they are only veins) so the leaf will look better in the gaiwan. Some of the huangpian should be discarded. Huangpian are leaves which have not oxidized properly, usually the older leaves. Some huangpian in a TGY will make it more fragrant, but too many will make the tea astringent. Special care should be taken to make sure the white buds sometimes visible at the top of twigs are discarded. These young buds will make TGY very astrigent.

Although this process is not extremely specialized and can be learned quite quickly, it is quite time consuming. The largest advantage experience gives is speed, and the beginner should take care not to break up the leaves. When seperating the maocha, a lot of weight is lost. About four tenths of each kilo are discarded. When labour is figured in a retailer must sell a tea for more than twice the wholesale price in order to break even.

I have also decided I don't like TGY very much. My favorite type of tea right now if I had to chose one would certainly be oolong. Almost every oolong tea is pleasing, and the variety makes for new suprises all the time. As many tea blog readers know, many drinkers in Guangdong/Hongkong and Taiwan as well as older people in Anxi may like a more traditional TGY which may be heavily roasted, more fully oxidized or both. Outside of these areas, it is not usually possible to find a more traditional TGY. Living in Zhejiang, Wenzhou all tea is as green as possible, and therefore TGY is very popular. This is more evident now than ever: Autumn TGY is said to be more fragrant than Spring tea, and is therefore preferred by some. Spring tea is more full bodied and has a better mouthfeel.

Forunately my friend made some friends from Taiwan while he was in Anxi, and therefore was able to bring back some decent tea. This past weekend I got to try an Oriental Beauty sample and an Imperial Consort Oolong. When I infused the Imperial Consort I was quite pleased. It had a nice light roast and was oxydized about halfway. It had many Oolong characteristics which I love. The mouthfeel was full and oily, and the fragrance was sometimes reminicent of Yancha. It also had the 'milk' aftertaste which can be often found in Spring TGY. When brewed strong it had a pleasent and light astringency which I don't mind. The responses to this tea was quite varied. My friend Xiaoguang loved this tea as well, but he said I made it too strong. His wife said not only was it too strong, but that there was nothing special about this tea. She had never heard the name and said it was low quality oolong made of leaves which were too old. She said someone just made up a fancy name so they could sell their tea for a higher price. Teamasters blog posted about this tea (贵妃茶 - guifeicha) a couple of days ago. It is probably not the same batch... just the same varietal or comes from the same area. Stephane called it Concubine tea.

CCTV 7 - Dancong Wulong

2008-10-14T22:43:00.000-07:00

Today I want to share a link for a video. It is all in Chinese, but I will summarize the audio below so people who can't speak Chinese will be able to tell whats going on. I think some of the video would be enjoyable even if you can't understand the audio.

This video is from CCTV (China Central Television, not closed circuit TV) Channel 7, one of my favorite TV channels. By watching CCTV 7 you can learn how to grow crops, how to raise pigs, chickens etc. They have shows on everything having to do with agriculture or the Chinese military.

This video explores the tea of Chaozhou: Fenghuang Dancong.

I have published my translation of the audio as a Google document here, it is too long to put into the blog. You shouldn't need an account to view it. It might be a good idea to print out the translation and read along as you watch the video on full screen. I couldn't see the time elapsed when not in full screen mode.

For best results open the video with Internet Explorer. It does not work with Firefox, or Google Chrome. It seems to work with Opera and Safari. The streaming video might not be so good outside of China.

The video can also be found at:

youku.com

and tudou.com

However, the commercials have been cut out, so my elapsed time notations would have to be modified.

Monkey Served Tea

2008-10-12T01:55:00.000-07:00

I have read many posts on various blogs about how not only is there no such thing as true monkey picked tea, but that there never was. In principle I agree. How could monkeys be trained to pick only the new leaves, and the proper number? How would you train the monkey to collect the tea in a bag and not just throw it around? Wouldn't the monkey bruise the leaf and damage the trees?

Now we have startling new scientific evidence that monkeys can be trained to pick tea! Well not really, but I saw an article in the Daily Mail about monkeys who work as waiters in a restaurant; and although it is not explicitly mentioned, they probably serve tea as one of their duties.

I leave you, the gentle reader, to be the judge of my outrageous extrapolation. Does a monkey serving tea in a restaurant suggest his ancestors or at least cousins in China might have been capable of picking tea? The scientific community awaits our verdict with communal bated breath.

The Amazing Monkey Waiters

Wuyi Shan Oct 2

2008-10-06T06:38:00.000-07:00

On the third day in Wuyishan I got up early determined to drink good tea no matter what the cost. I had made a date to drink tea at the Jinpao（金袍 - Golden Robe）Tea factory in the afternoon, as old customers had reservations with them for the morning. My friend and I decided to go to Xingcun（星村） and ride the bamboo rafts down the river.

We tried taking a cab, but the cab couldn't go down the road because traffic is restricted during the tourist season. We decided to walk to Xingcun instead. We made a detour through some villages with lots of tea gardens and also walked down a path to the Nine Bends Stream where I took a nice picture of an iridescent dragon fly perched on a rock. Eventually we got on a public bus and rode all the way to the end of the line. Conventional wisdom says not to buy tea from Xingcun. The farmers there sell all of their tea leaf to large factories and then buy cheap chaqing (茶青， unprocessed tea leaves) from other areas to make their Yancha. Therefore it is not real Zhengyan tea, and therefore not so good. My friend and I wandered around Xingcun to get a sense of direction, and happened upon a little shop selling firecrackers, cigarettes, incense, paper money, and of course tea. We went in and had some of the tea the wife was sorting, it wasn't so good, but the husband invited us back to his home and tea factory to have some better tea.

He led us through the winding alleys and backstreets of Xingcun to his house, up on a small rise. In the first picture of the backstreets of Xingcun the reader will see Mr. Li's back in the foreground as he leads us along the backstreets of Xingcun. The buildings in this area of town were traditional construction made from packed earth. As the earth in Wuyi shan is red, it adds a pleasing natural color to the walls. In addition to the beautiful red earth, crushed ceramic and gravel is added for texture. In the detail photo you can see where tea ware goes when it dies.

Bowl bottoms make an interesting detail in the earth walls. The earth is pounded into place, and in the center of the walls are boards and grass to add structural support. The foundations are more substantial stone or brick construction, and most earth walls are no more than one story high. A second story is constructed with hollow brick walls. Sometimes wooden garrets are made under the eaves perfect for imprisoning orphans, if you have been reading too much Dickens.

In the third photo the reader can see the various layers of construction materials. The foundation is brick, then a layer of round, medium sized stones on the right. Above the earth layer, one can see the hollow brick construction which makes up the stepped square facade. Also of note is the beautiful old well surrounded with stones.

Mr. Li, our host had a nice two story concrete house with his tea processing equipment taking up most of the substantial courtyard. As we entered on the left there was a bank of about 40 pots of orchids, all of which he had dug up and taken home, unfortunately few were in bloom. He also had a potted Baijiguan (白鸡冠 white cock's comb) which I snapped a picture of.

If you look closely you can see it is fertilized with spent tea leaves.

At Mr. Li's house we drank about 4 different teas. He was a much more down to earth guy than a lot of the tea sellers. Mr. Li strikes me as a farmer who is a good tea processor and businessman, but who is not involved with the tourist trade very much. Most tourists come to Xingcun just to get on the bamboo rafts and float back towards the resort area. He also had very down to earth prices. I didn't ask him if his tea was 'Zhengyan' or not, mostly because his prices were 120-180 RMB per jin(500 grams) He told us that most of his tea was for blending and later sale as Dahongpao. We drank some Laocong Shuixian, Rougui, Beidou #1, and some 105. Mr. Li says his customers blend the 105 and Rougui to make Dahongpao, and also they sometimes use the Beidou #1. Mr. Li's teas were all pretty high fire, and well oxidized which is how I like it. When he made Gongfucha, he made it like a local. To make Yancha like a local, you fill up the gaiwan with as much leaf as possible, even pushing the leaves down a little bit if necessary. Instead of instant pours, you let it sit for as much as 30 or more seconds even on the first infusion. This is how I like to drink Yancha.

I bought some of the Laocong Shuixian and some of the Beidou #1, which he said still needed to rest (or tuihuo 退火) and then be roasted again. He said Tea should rest at least 20 days between roastings. I bought the Beidou anyway, because it was already pretty roasted, and I liked it.

After leaving Mr. Li's house we found a great little restaurant run by Chinese who had come back from living in Vietnam. They made wonderful Vietnamese noodles with no meat or vegetables, just sauce, and my friend and I ate lunch for 7RMB or one dollar US between the two of us.

At the Bamboo raft area the lines were long, and some people told us that we wouldn't be able to buy tickets. We walked out of Xingcun to the main road to wait for the bus. On the way to the main road there were tea bushes on either side of the road, click on the picture below to see a larger version, three men and a tea bush trimming machine can almost be made out.

In the afternoon we went to the Jinpao tea factory to try some better teas. The Jinpao tea factory is inside the scenic area, almost just over the bridge to the resort area. The Jinpao factory is run by a large family, and is a fairly large affair. There are three tasting rooms at the front of the compound. Two cousins brewed teas and fetched more from the back. We drank 3 rouguis, 3 Laocong Shuixian, Jin Suoshi, Qilan, Gold Medal Dahongpao, and maybe one or two more I can't recall. Most of the teas were brewed two or three at a time, so they could be prepared together. The people who run this place are pretty knowledgeable about tea, and have a professional setup. The tea is brewed in Gaiwans, and then poured off into a bowl with a ceramic spoon to smell the tea. Each person can serve their own tea with the spoon. Each infusion is poured into a separate bowl, or the previous infusion is dumped out. It always annoyed me when tea sellers would mix different infusions together.

I asked the Jin Pao people for more traditional teas - more oxidized, higher fire, and handmade if possible. It is my opinion that a lot of the Qingxiang or light and fragrant tea in Wuyi suffers a lot in the realm of mouth feel. Most of the qingxiang teas I drank in Wuyi had thin and insipid liquor, and little taste. Sometimes, a tea will suffer from being over oxidized or over roasted, but I had many well made teas in Wuyi that did not sacrifice fragrance for mouth feel. I also like a fragrant, flowery tea; but with Yancha I feel that qingxiang teas are often an excuse for poor processing. Because of a lack of skill, the processor will end oxidization early because for fear of overdoing it.

Jin Pao had a lot of good middle range teas, which I enjoyed. However they seem to have a lot of qingxiang teas which lack mouth feel. I bought a 'hundred year old bush shuixian' a 'gold medal dahongpao' and a 'golden key.'

I remember liking the golden key varietal quite a lot when I first had it. I got the Qilan and the Gold medal Dahongpao a little bit mixed up at the very end of our tea session. I was trying to organize my thoughts on all the teas and decide on what to purchase when I should have been paying attention. I may have bought the golden medal dahongpao because I thought it was the Qilan.

After dinner, still toting my previous purchase, my friend and I made a stop in a store where a friendly woman worked. She had helped introduce us to a couple of places to buy carvings, and we wanted to say thanks and goodbye. When she noticed all the tea we were carrying she wanted to know what everything was, where we got it and for how much. I offered to let her taste it, and she took me up on the offer. She said her brother was a great tea drinker and would be able to tell us if the tea was real Zhengyan tea or not. It turned out her 'brother' also owned the shop.

We drank some of the Laocong I had just bought. I really liked my Laocong because the qingtai (青苔 or moss) flavour was so strong, it almost tasted like puerh tea. Older brother Xiong said my Laocong was alright, but it was only 'gaocong' (高丛 high bush, not yet true old bush) which means it came from bushes only 30-40 years old. He brought out some of his own 'real' laocong shuixian, which did in all honesty have a much better mouth feel and a fuller flavour. He also wanted 1,200 RMB/jin as opposed to 560 RMB/jin that I had bought mine for. However, after the 5th infusion both teas were still going strong and I was hard pressed to tell much difference between the two.

We also drank some of my Gold medal dahongpao, and he brought out some of his Huang guanyin (黄观音 or yellow guanyin as opposed to iron/tie guanyin.) Again his huang guanyin was better than my tea, but about double the price. He said my dahongpao hadn't won any sort of gold medal, and that it wasn't even real yancha, but was zhoucha (周茶 or tea from the area around Wuyishan.) This guy certainly didn't do very much for my confidence, but he kept us company and cheerfully talked tea with me for an hour and a half, and I didn't even buy anything.

He did give me a very good idea, which is pretty obvious, really. If you are having a lot of trouble getting tea sellers to take out their best teas, bring a bunch of samples of your best tea to the stores and drink it with the proprietor. Say you want something better, and make sure to tell them you bought it for a fraction of the actual price.

Older brother Xiong was a nice guy who has been drinking tea all his life (like everyone from Wuyi) but he has been in the tea business for only two years. He doesn't produce tea himself, but might be a good contact for people who are going to Wuyi. He also sells Tieguanyin and told a great story of his friend who buys TGY for a large company to the tune of one million RMB each season. Older brother Xiong often goes to Anxi with this friend who is teaching him about the TGY business. This friend buys TGY without drinking it. He just grabs a handful and smells it, looks at the leaf and starts bargaining. Perhaps my readers have seen this done, or heard of it, but I had not and thought it interesting.

Shop name 武夷山悦茗香

Contact （older brother）熊殿标 13860015899

address 武夷山三菇度假区天游峰路 A-9-11

悦茗香茶业圣远酒店对面

Woman in the shop 梁丹 13859322693

I told Mr. Xiong I would put his number and shop address up on the net. He has not been in the business for very long(2 years), and so is more likely to want to meet new customers or tea friends. He seems to be in the business because he loves tea. He also has good tea. I wouldn't go so far as to reccomend buying his products as I didn't buy anything from him, but all the tea I had in his shop was good if a little expensive. He is friendly and knowledgeable and willing to talk, but can only speak Chinese.

I hope others may profit from my experience at Wuyi, just as I profited from those who blogged before me. Please feel free to email me with any questions. I may not be able to answer them, but can promise to live vicariously through you or anyone who is planning a tea trip. I can also provide more phone numbers, addresses of places I went to, as well as names of factories with good reputations that I have yet to visit.

Wuyi Shan Oct. 1st

2008-10-06T04:09:00.000-07:00

On my second day At Wuyishan, I just felt rotten, had digestive issues and was dizzy and weak. I think it was the shellfish I ate at the restaurant the night before, but it could have been drinking too much tea. I got some antibiotics, and some Chinese medicine. I felt a lot better by the third day, but the second day was not productive. I did drink some tea, but not much. Especially in the morning I just swished it around in my mouth and then spit it out. In the spring, when the new tea is finished, the producers and buyers usually taste the tea this way, rinsing it around in the mouth and then spitting it out.

My friend was trying to find a nice tea for cheap, as Yancha is not very popular in Southern Zhejiang province. He thought that his customers would not be able to accept a more expensive Yancha, and was looking to get a nice tea for 50-150 RMB/kilo. I was interested in getting a good tea for myself, and interested in buying small quantities if even if the price was high. I did traipse around the area with him trying all the garbage teas, looking at carvings, both stone and wood, looking at tea packaging and other tea products. Since I did not do much tea drinking on the 1st, I will introduce some of Wuyi's other products. One of the most interesting things I found was the Wuyi bingcha pictured above. I was really surprised to see these all over the city in tea shops. I had never heard of Yancha being pressed into a cake, but here they were. As soon as I got back, Hobbes posted about this on Half-dipper, and people commenting on his post left links on where to buy the stuff as well as links to posts on rec.food.drink.tea. The prices were about 11USD for a small bing of about 150 grams. I thought it was really expensive. I offered a bunch of store keepers 20RMB, but they didn't sell. I asked one proprietor when Wuyi started making these tea cakes, and he said they had always made them, but they had been for the farmers personal use in the past. I also noticed that many of the cakes were covered in plastic wrap. Wuyi tea is supposed to be kept sealed up pretty tight, while Pu'er is supposed to have access to a certain amount of air. I wonder if these tea cakes age well, and how they ought to be kept for best results.

Another famous specialty of Wuyi mountain is Shoushan shi（寿山石 - longevity mountain stone）which is a beautiful orange red and white stone, and one of the four most famous stones in China. They sell lots of poor quality carvings in many stores all over Wuyi, and also many beautiful pieces of art. If you want to buy shoushanshi, look around. they have lots of decently priced items, as well as overpriced ones. Most pieces are covered in oil to protect them, which attracts small insects which in turn get stuck in the oil. Corax got a chop made (see the link to his post on Chadao two posts ago) at 乐宝齐寿山石总店 (tel 0599.525.2542) which I was also able to find, unfortunately it was closed by the time I got there.

Snake products are ubiquitous in Wuyi. They have a snake garden somewhere nearby, which supposedly hold tens of thousands of snakes. These snakes are used to make delicacies such as snake meat and snake gall wine and snake wine and snake oil and snake face cream. Almost every store in Wuyi has a snake product section. I really meant to get some snake wine, as it is sort of legendary in China.

I suppose it is silly, but it certainly would impress my male friends back in the states if all I drank from now on was liquor that had snake corpses floating in it. Snakes are also killed in the thousands for their penises. I am not just making a crude joke, every store in the resort area has a couple of boxes.

They sell for the bargain rate of 20 RMB/box of five. I never actually saw anyone buy any. I didn't either, and I probably wouldn't admit it here if I had. They are supposed to improve sexual prowess in males.

The last thing I wanted to mention is a set of postcards which I bought. I went into a painter's shop in a side street. He was from Chongqing and painted almost exclusively landscape paintings from Wuyi Mountain. He was a good painter, but his style was a little bit round and coarse for me, so I didn't buy any of his paintings.

He did have a great set of postcards of scenery from Wuyi mountain, which were a bargain at 12 yuan. They were issued by the post office, so they are quite a bargain as half the price of the set is postage.

The painter's name is Jiang Guanmin (蒋关民.）He also showed us a great fold out painting of the scenery of all nine bends in the local Jiuqu xi (九曲溪 - nine bends stream) that was several meters long.

I would suggest these postcards as an interesting alternative to regular postcards, and which also supports a local artist (who moved there from Chongqing.)

I slept most of the afternoon of October first in order to get over my sickness and prepare for another tea drinking marathon. October first is Chinese National Day for those of you who don't know. Be sure never to go anywhere in China on national day, especially not tourist destinations such as Wuyi. I had a vacation during this time, and so I decided to risk it and go anyway. All of the tourist destinations are packed, there are lines for everything. All the locals are trying to cheat as many people as they can. All the restaurants are busy and will ignore you if they have to get a high profit dinner ready for a huge tourist group. If you do go during the Chinese holiday season, I would suggest you go with a tour group.

I thought maybe the vacation would not affect the tea people, but it does. Everyone is busy on the holidays. Lots of the tea people are in their shops hawking their lowest quality goods to tourists who will pay big bucks for a fancy looking box of tea with the characters Dahongpao written on it. Also many of their old customers may only have time to come by during the vacation, and they will be keeping these people company.

If you go on the off season it is much easier to convince the tea dealers that you came for the tea and are not just a tourist. They will have more time to sit down with you and just chat. When an area is as full of tea shops as this place is, a lot of these people are bored much of the year, and if you go at the right time they are friendly, helpful and happy to have the company of someone who loves tea even if you don't buy anything. Most importantly, many tea producers don't even keep their best teas in the shops. If you go during the off season, they have plenty of time to take you to the tea factory and see the tea gardens, and try all the better teas.

It will also help if you do some tea research before you go. It is good to find respected names on the Internet, find their numbers and just give them a call. When you do this, they will know you came for tea and it is a much better method than walking into random shops in the resort area and hoping they are tea producers.

Wuyi Shan Sept. 30

2008-10-04T03:47:00.000-07:00

The bus trip to Wuyi Shan was just as long as I had suspected. China is a place with lots of mountains, so in certain places taking a plane can save a lot of time. The train was not an option from Wenzhou, so we took the bus which dropped us off at the resort area at about 10pm Monday the 29th. Looked at the carvings and had a cup of tea at a random shop. The wooden carvings （雕根） for sale in Wuyi are mostly amazing, but also expensive. When we stopped for a break on the bus ride home, my friend went in to a workshop where they are produced. A product that would be marked with a 20,000-30,000 RMB price tag and sell for about 8,000 RMB in Wuyi Resort area was on offer there for 1,000 RMB. Maybe there was something wrong with it I didn't see.

A local hustler got us a hotel room the first night for 130 RMB. The next night the price doubled. Our hustler was still anxious to help in the morning. At about 8AM we set off to get discount tickets to the resort area. Our guide/hustler led us past the gate to the 大王峰 and over to the river. We started up a narrow path around the fence. The 'discount tickets' were not tickets at all. The hustler just wanted to charge us half price to sneak us around the ticket collector. She was angry and said we were very stubborn when we refused to sneak in. We did not wind up going to any sights in the tourist area of Wuyi Shan.

We took a taxi to the Big Tea Pot （大茶壶茶叶研究所）and arrived before 9AM. Kids were screaming and everyone was too busy to pay attention to us. Don't get me wrong, this place is worth checking out, although most people say its a bit on the expensive side. I regret I didn't go back to the Big Tea Pot at a better time. I will definitely make a stop there next time. The proprietor is Liu Feng （刘峰）one of the 'Three Lius' who are famous in Wuyi for their tea processing skills.

Our tea drinking marathon began at about 9AM and lasted through Sept. second. We made a call to the proprietor of Tianzishenyun, mentioned in posts by Corax on Chadao and by Will (see my previous blog post for links.) Ms. Yu's husband, Mr. Lu came to pick us up in his truck. Their house is great, we got to see all of the tea making equipment, and most importantly, they were re-roasting their tea.

For those of you who have never experienced it, Yancha over a roasting pit (beilu - 焙炉) is one of the most wonderful fragrances one can encounter. I took a couple of pictures of the room, also mentioned in previous posts with the reed baskets over the concrete roasting pits.

We drank a bunch of cheaper teas, including their Yanzhonglan(岩中兰）the high fire version is quite good. We also had his Baijiguan (白鸡冠.）I wasn't very impressed with the baijiguan. It looks really cool (yellow leaves with red edges) but it doesn't have the Yanyun (岩韵) which Yancha is famous for. I heard a few tea sellers say Baijiguan is not very good, but that they can get a good price for it and it sells well to certain customers. Mr. Lu took us for lunch to a small restaurant near his home, which in my opinion was excellent. The moderate spiciness suited my taste, and did not overpower my palate for the afternoon tea session. We had green vegetables, some sort of eel like fish which lives in the mud, bamboo shoots, and Chinese bacon(腊肉), which for some reason I love.

After lunch, my friend and I went back to Mr. Lu's for an afternoon session. We had a Gushucha (古树茶 ancient tree tea) which was very good. They have a couple of versions. The cheaper version I had before lunch was OK, I finally got them to bring out the 900RMB/kilo high fire version which I drank right after lunch and was impressed by the Chaqi. The old bush teas, including Shuixian are said to have a mossy flavour (青苔 qingtai.) I didn't think moss was the best description, but I think I noticed the flavour they were talking about. I bought some of the high fire Gushucha and high fire Yanzhonglan, and got samples of the Qingxiang Gushucha, Dahongpao, and Shuixian. After buying tea, Mr. Lu drove us into the Scenic area to show us some of his tea bushes and then dropped us off at the Wenyou Shudian, also mentioned in the Chadao post.

Mr. Lu went into the bookstore first and bought me a copy of the Record of Famous Bushes of Wuyi Mountain (武夷岩茶名丛录.) Since he is a local, he got the book for the local price (60 yuan as opposed to the 100 yuan cover price.) It is a great book with pictures and descriptions of 70 varietals, and a list of names of 280 varietals from the 1943. I plan to do a post with some names and translations as well as descriptions as soon as I have time.

Apart from this book, there was not much other material about tea. There is a Chadao magazine, but the selection didn't seem as good as when Corax from Chadao was there.

In the afternoon we waded through a bunch of cheap teas which are not worth mentioning. The one exception was the 石乳 or 'stone milk.' It was tasty, and had an interesting beidixiang which really had a milky fragrance. (kind of like that sometimes found in TGY or Taiwan Oolong like Alishan.) I found a 石钟乳 or 'stone clock milk' varietal in my handy book in the list of names from 1943, but this varietal is not described. I did see it in other shops, so it is not unheard of.

The restaurant we tried to eat at on Monday night was awful. They had all sorts of vegetables set out to choose from including all sorts of mushrooms, bee (maybe wasp) larvae, deer, some unidentifiable animals. After a whole hour of waiting they only managed to bring out 1 dish, which was nasty fresh water shellfish. Most of the shells were empty, and there was a lot more empty shells than shell-less meats. They tried to bring over some expensive dishes which we hadn't ordered, and eventually we left without eating.

After we finally had a bowl of noodles, I went back to the hotel to rest for awhile. My friend went back out immediately to drink more tea, and I just lay about making notes.

Laying by myself in the hotel room I had a very strange experience. Some of the Huigan 回感 of the myriad teas I had had throughout the day came back to haunt me. It was very hard to attach each huigan to a specific tea, but very lucid tea flashbacks. It was like remembering part of a very nice dream I had had days earlier... sometimes the whole dream or the context is hard to recall, but the nice feelings or pleasant emotions of the dream come back.

My friend took came back to the hotel room at about 10pm to get a sample of tea to bring out to another tea shop to see if they could match the flavour at a better price. We went to 探春 tanchun teashop (in the resort area, right opposite the bus station.)

I went to the factory of the family who runs Tanchun teashop on the third day. I am not sure what to think of their business practices, but the young woman who runs Tanchun is very knowledgeable. She told us our tea sample was a mix of Rougui and Beidou varietals. Rougui has a rough feel to the leaves which are more narrow than Beidou. Beidou is smooth, and the leaves are wider. She also told me that all Fenghuang Oolong tea was originally from Wuyishan, and that the bushes were transplanted there during the song dynasty. Evidence can be found in the 崇安县志 chonganxianzhi. I am not sure who to believe, as I have also read that all Wuyi Yancha originates in Chaozhou. I have been suspecting some sort of connection for awhile since so many of the names are so similar. I'm pretty sure the relationship is not as simple as everyone makes it out to be.

Fujian Wuyi Mountain

2008-09-27T20:50:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I leave for Wuyishan at 10 AM. I am perhaps a little bit too excited, but that's probably understandable to anyone who would read one of these tea blogs. Unfortunately another Typhoon - Jangmi - is hitting Taiwan today. Wenzhou, where I live, is almost right across the strait from Taiwan, fortunately Wuyi is farther inland. I should be fine, although the weather might be lousy. I hope they do alright in Taiwan, this one is supposed to be stronger than the last.

I am continuing a long and illustrious tradition of tea bloggers on my journey. In preparation I consulted blogs and received many helpful replies to my inquiries from those who have gone before. Some of the blogs I found useful were these two from Chadao: post one and post two

And also a nice blog (short) describing a trip to Wuyi in Oct, 2007. Just under one year ago.

There are of course many Chinese resources, blog posts, tea chat type sites, company websites, etc.

I have had fun planning my trip to Wuyi, and hopefully will have even more fun starting tomorrow, or at least the day after. Although according to my map Wenzhou is only 260 KM from Wuyishan as the bird flies, the Lonely Planet guidebook says the bus ride is 12 hours. That makes an average of about 22KM per hour. I'm hoping that either Lonely Planet is wrong or outdated. I have a sinking feeling that its right and the road is not very direct. I don't think there are any direct flights. It would probably take only 20-30 minutes by plane.

Thanks very much to everyone who wrote blog posts about their trips and those who gave advice via email.

Why Drink Tea?

2008-09-23T23:09:00.000-07:00

If you have not stopped by the mandarins tea, read this post and followed the link, please do so now. The link is to a not so obscure newspaper, The New York Times; the story, of course is about tea.

The story is about a very interesting man, his life, and tea. Later in life he moved to America and taught the Japanese tea ceremony. Through this article I was introduced to the Urasenke tea ceremony tradition, and found out about their schools in the US. I like the way the article portrayed the man, and the tradition. It had me thinking about tea all afternoon.

After dinner yesterday, my wife asked me to make her some tea. I usually don't drink tea after dinner, because I am sensitive to caffeine. I hadn't had gongfu cha, or tea brewed with a gaiwan in about three days, as I had been sick and busy. I had things to do last night, and was thinking about work the next day. After the water had been heated and the tea things set right, I took a deep breath and noticed such a change in my mind and body. As I opened the bag of tea, I felt peaceful. Manipulating the gaiwan, I was content and my muscles relaxed. Just a few minutes preparing tea, and the whole mood and rhythm of the rest of my evening changed. Especially approaching the tea table without a desire for tea myself, I remembered why I like tea to drink tea.

I have not been making tea with Chinese/Japanese tea sets for my whole life, I am not a master of tea. I like the flavor of tea, and often take some in an insulated cup with me to work. I can understand why people think Chinese/Japanese tea preparation is a bother, but last night I remembered why I like it. As Mr. Yamada is quoted at the end of the NYT article 'As for those who think they are too busy to make time for tea, “You discover that you are not as busy as you think you are.”'

The Origin of Fenghuang Oolong Tea (ii)

2008-09-17T08:47:00.001-07:00

Red Fungus Tea (红菌茶)
  During the Song Dynasty¹, the people of Fenghuang mountain found the 'red fungus' tea teas, made tea and drank it. They thought the the flavour very good, and so began digging up young plants and transplanting them around their houses. From this time, the cultivation of tea by the people of Fenghuang started.
  Even today on the ancient Fenghuang mountains, in areas not yet opened for agricultural productions as well as slopes and cliffs, 'red fungus' tea trees still grow.
'Red fungus' is the wild fore bearer of the cultivated 'bird's beak'² (also called Fenghuang shuixian.³) It is because the gorgeous light red color which appears on the edges of the tender new leaves that this tea gets its name.
  Over many years through the process of growth and natural propagation, there developed 'hong xin' and 'baixin' varieties of 'red fungus' (These are terms used by the locals, the actual leaves are green, and not white.⁴)
  This variety grows at 450 Meters or more above sea level in barren hills and wild peaks, or in clifftop or amidst brushwood. Sunlight and mist are beneficial, but shade and rain are harmful. They have high resistance to insects, cold and drought, and are a very hardy variety. This variety exhibits strong growth year after year in places like Fenghuangji Mountain's Weiyan cliffs which are 1,498 Meter above sea level, below the sheer rock face of Wanfeng mountain, or the gravelly soil on the slopes of Daxinkuyundu Mountain.
The appearance of these bushes are almost exactly the same as the 'bird's mouth' tea bush, but there are some differences between them. The first difference is the new tea shoots, one is dark green, the other light, one has hairs, the other none.⁵ 'Red fungus' young leaves not only have hairs, they have lots of them. The second difference is on the back of the 'red fungus' mature leaf, there is hair. The 'bird's beak' has very little or no hair at all.

¹ Northern Song 960-1127 Southern Song 1127-1270
² 鸟嘴 niaozui
³ 水仙 The same shuixian characters as one of the 4 famous bushes of Wuyishan.
⁴ 红心, hongxin, red center: refers to the reddish color of the leaves of one variety, 白心, baixin, white center: are the plants with normal green color leaves. It seems like they are called white because of a lack of [unusual] color. The book is not why 'xin' (heart or center) is used. It seemed to suggest that the red coloring was on the edges of new leaves.
⁵ At this point, the text is not explicit about which has hairs and which none, but it can be inferred from the order which they are referred to and the hair of the mature leaves that the 'red fungus' or hongjun is the hairy one at all stages .

Xiaoguang's Tea Tray

2008-09-17T08:05:00.000-07:00

My friend just switched to a new larger tea tray. His old one was bamboo, and beginning to split apart. His new one is also bamboo, but it is laminated under high pressure with lots of adhesive and a good topcoat of laminate or something similar. On the left hand side of the tea tray is found the design pictured here . I had looked at it a few times until I noticed something wrong. The legend in the upper right hand corner reads as followed (re transcribed from up-down, right-left to left-right, up-down)

山路庄

雅客

少。胡

琴一曲

代RA

DIO

I translated the poem, and have arranged it as the artist has above

On the mountain road, the small hut

is refined, travelers

are few. The er-
hu's song
instead of a RA

DIO

The use of one English word strikes me so funny here. At first I didn't understand that the five English letters were one word. The free verse is beautiful, but what is the English word doing hanging off the end making it almost impossible for English speakers or Chinese speakers to get a full understanding without help unless they speak at least a little of the other language? Who came up with this? I like how the author made such a simple legend into a poem and a thing of beauty as much through the wording, simplicity and arrangement as through the scene described. Then, it seems the author becomes a little bit evil... was he thinking that most people who bought this would never really read the whole thing? Was it a jibe at the complacency of humans to add this bit of a foreign language just to make the customer work for this little gem? If so, he certainly provided me with some entertainment. My only answer to the question is that this is a haiku, and it works out to the proper number of syllables in Japanese when the English for radio is added. Unfortunately I don't speak Japanese, so I have no good way of testing this hypothesis. It works out to 13 syllables in Chinese(including the English), and looks like free verse, although very short.

The Origin of Fenghuang Oolong Tea (i)

2008-09-17T04:33:00.000-07:00

Legend has it that the Fenghuang mountains are the birthplace of the She Nationality¹, and therefore it is also the origin of oolong tea. During the Sui, Tang and Song Dynasties, wherever the She people were to be found there were oolong tea bushes cultivated. The fate of the She people is one unseprable from oolong tea. They live and flourish in the same areas. During the Sui dynasty, an earthquake caused a volcanic eruption, and all of the tea bushes in the whole area of Gouwangliao in the Fengniaoji mountains², the native home of the ancestors of the She people, were killed by the fire. The only places where gardens remained was in Wudong mountain and Daizhao mountain.³ Following the movement of some of the She people to the east, oolong cultivars were brought to Fujian. Today, most of the residents of Shiguping village in Fenghuang Town⁴ are She, Shiguping village's mostly produces Shiguping oolong tea which is one of the famous cultivars of Fenghuang oolong.

During the Song dynasty, the people of Fenghuang town found a "red fungus tea bush⁵" with red leaves which were sharp like a bird's beak. When this was processed and imbibed, they thought this was even better than oolong tea, so they began to experiment with cultivating it. At this point in time, the Song emperor Zhao Bing⁶ was being chased by Mongolian troops, he fled south into Chaozhou.⁷ From this time the legend amoung the people about the emperor Zhao Bing started. "Zhao bing was on the road to Wudong mountain, and was unbearably thirsty. The mountainfolk offered him the liqour of the 'red fungus tea.' After drinking it he praised the tea, saying it was good." Because of this the people called this 'Song Variety' tea. Because of these stories, Fenghuang teas probably originated during the Song Dynasty. With the already supernatural name of Fenghuang (phoenix), upon hearing the story of the thirsty emperor Zhao Bing and his praise of the tea, the name 'birds beak tea' became slowly more and more popular amongst the people.

Another story has it that the mountain people of Fenghuang heard that the Song emperor was fleeing towards Fenghuang mountain, and boiled tea to welcome his illustrious imperial highness... This story shows that Fenghuang tea already existed during the Song Dynasty. Some say that Fenghuang tea has a history of over 900 years, some say more than 1000. Professor Yan Xuecheng of the South China Agricultural University⁸ isolated a sample of cells from a Fenghuang tea leaf. From his tests and analysis of the sample he found that the cuticle was of a primitive type. From these results it can be infered that the history of Fenghuang tea is much older than 1000 years.

From the time of the first people of Fenghuang mountain discovering and exploiting 'red fungus' to the time of the Ming dynasty; from wild to cultivated; from digging up and transplanting young shoots to using seeds and finally to artificial propagation techniques the people of Fenghuang are constantly practicing careful propagation, screening，ever aggregating experience in order for constant optimization of the tea, and constant development of tea production.

¹ ethnologue on the She people （畲族）

² 凤鸟髻山狗王寮

³ 乌岽山，待诏山

⁴ 凤凰镇石古坪村 The term fenghuang means phoenix in Chinese. It is the name of a township, and the name of a mountain range in the prefecture of Chaozhou. Since the tea comes from this area, it is also called phoenix tea. I hope my translation is clear enough so that the reader can tell when the text refers to each one, and that it is not cofusing.

⁵ 红菌茶树

⁶ 赵昺

⁷ 潮州 Chaozhou is a prefecture in the far east of Guangdong province near Fujian. The dialect in Chaozhou is actually more similar to Fujian dialect than to Guangzhou dialect.

⁸ Yan Xuecheng 严学成教授(professor) of 华南农业大学(South China Agricultural University

My Notes

This is the first I have heard of the She people being the first cultivators of oolong varieties of tea, although this does not prove anything. Much of the legendary parts of this are open for debate, but then again, some legends do have basis in fact. I am not sure of the usefulness of this bit of text, but it should serve to edify the translator and perhaps a curious reader or two as to some of the legends surrounding the origins of this wonderful tea. It does suggest further research - vis. the work of professor Yan Xuecheng of South China Agricultural University. I plan to do three more short translations from this book about the development of Fenghuang Tea and historical varieties.

This exerpt is taken from a book called 凤凰但从 of the publisher's series 中国名茶丛书 from the publisher 中国农业出版社. ISBN 7109108759. This exerpt is from pages 5-6. My previous post on this same blog of a list of names was an effort to organize all of the names of bushes I found throughout this book.

Phoenix Single Bush Oolong Names

2008-09-10T06:00:00.000-07:00

Phoenix Single Bush Oolong or Fenghuang Dancong Wulong (凤凰单枞乌龙) has many different names for different bushes. As confusing and sometimes frustrating for the new connoisseur, this is inevitable because of the very nature of the tea. The goal is to get a tea from a single bush, so logic follows that types of fragrances and then specific bushes should be named. It is mostly for my own edification that I attempt to organize a list of names and translations. I found a list in a book about Dancong Oolong, which I duplicate below with my own translations of the names.

壹 - 黄枝香（栀子花香）型 Gardenia fragrance type
1. 宋种黄枝香 Song variety gardenia fragrance
2. 宋种黄茶香 Song variety yellow tea fragrance
3. 大白叶 Large White Leaf
4. 黄茶香 Yellow tea fragrance
5. 老仙翁 Old fey gaffer
6. 宋种2号 Song variety No. 2
7. 佳常种 Always fine variety
8. 棕蓑挟 palm frond coir clasped under the arm
9. 特选黄枝香 Special selection gardenia fragrance

贰 - 芝兰香型 herbal fragrance type (literally, the glossy ganoderma and the fragrant thoroughwort fragrance type)
1. 八仙 Eight immortals
2. 宋种芝兰香 Song variety herbal fragrance
3. 竹叶 Bamboo leaf
4. 鸡笼刊 Chicken cage
5. 芝兰香 Herbal fragrance

叁 - 蜜兰香型 Honey orchid fragrance type
1. 蜜兰香 Honey Orchid fragrance
2. 白叶单枞 White leaf dancong
3. 香番薯 Fragrant sweet potato

肆 - 桂花香型 Osmanthus flower fragrance type

伍 - 玉兰香型 Jade Orchid fragrance type

陆 - 姜花香型 Ginger flower fragrance type
1. 柚叶 Pomelo leaf
2. 杨梅叶 Waxberry Leaf
3. 姜母香 Ginger root fragrance
4. 火辣茶 Fiery spice tea

柒 - 夜来香型 Fragrance which comes in the night type

捌 - 茉莉香型 Jasmine fragrance type

玖 - 杏仁香型 Almond fragrance type
1. 锯剁仔 Saw cut seed
2. 杏仁香 Almond fragrance

拾 - 肉桂香型 Cassia fragrance type

The Colonial World Fairs Collection

2008-09-10T04:50:00.000-07:00

The Dutch East Indies company put on a Colonial World Fair of objects and photographs collected in its colonies. There is now a website where many of these photographs are available for research.

These photos can be searched at a site called The Memory of the Netherlands here. The keyword 'tea' will bring up 15 photos, one of which is shown here. There is one other photo of a man in a tea field, and 3 photos of tea in processing or packaging. More interesting photos are forthcoming if the Dutch word for tea(thee) is input. There are 275 results for Dutch, I tried French, but I didn't put the diacritical over the 'e', so the results weren't useful.

Yuexi Emerald Orchid

2008-09-03T06:16:00.000-07:00

Yuexi Emerald Orchid is a new tea from Anhui province (Yuexi Cuilan 岳西翠兰） Yuexi is a county on the border of Hubei province and this tea is a fairly new one. I had never heard of it, but a friend of mine who knows I like tea got his father to buy an extra half kilogram bag of the tea from his hometown to give to me. It was quite a thoughtful present, and great because I had never tried this tea before, and there is nothing I like better than trying a new tea. I was not sure what to expect of the tea from the package. However, It did say that it was organic on the cover, and my friend told me his father likes tea. The bag also proclaims the provincial and national recognition the tea has received. It began receiving awards in 1985, I think it was 1987 when it was declared a 'China Famous Tea' It can be found on babelcarp here

When I opened the bag I smelled the leaves right away. They smelled sweet and little bit like hay.

To brew my first gaiwan I used all leaves that had fallen on the table when I was pouring a portion of the tea out of the bag for use. I used boiling water that had been cooling for a few minutes and used all of the dry leaves pictured in a very small gaiwan. probably about 100ml or less. First poured a bit of water in to smell the fragrance. It smelled like fresh tea leaf -- a little bit like wintergreen.

First Infusion -- I infused this tea for about 45 seconds to a minute because I used few leaves. It was slightly astringent, but not unpleasant. The gaiwan lid smelled vegetal, a little bit like fresh cut grass. The chaqi was light and heady, but easily felt. This tea is certainly a green tea, but unlike the Zhejiang greens that I have been drinking (mostly Longjing and Wuniuzao.) The color of the soup was a bright green, not like the blue-green I was expecting from the description on the package.

Second Infusion -- About 1 minute. Still a little bit astringent, but very refreshing. Strong sweet wintergreen smell on the gaiwan lid. The feeling of the chaqi became more powerful, very heady. I realized during the second infusion that the flavour of this tea was most akin to fresh tea leaves than any other tea I have ever had. During a trek in the mountains last week to collect mountain spring water, my friend and I had been tasting the tea buds of wild tea trees on the path. Vegetal, somewhat evergreen and wintergreen like in flavour. This is what kept coming to mind. There is also a buttery mouthfeel flavour in the background, but the fresh tea leaf dominates.

Third Infusion -- Just over a minute. Weakening, but still refreshing. This tea has a very nice chaqi, which is refreshing, and energizing, but relaxing at the same time. I felt energized, but more mentally than physically. Could definitely feel Chazui coming on sooner than most teas, but in a very pleasant way.

Fourth and Fifth Infusions -- Used boiling water. The tea became much weaker, but was still refreshing and pleasant to drink. Wintergreen on Gaiwan lid still present. The soup in the last picture is from the fourth infusion.

The leaves were very delicate, this tea is very tippy and the leaves are less robust than Zhejiang Greens. I unfolded some of the leaves, but most of the ones that got into the gaiwan were broken, because I had used the fallen pieces. Most of the tea is not so broken up. My first impression is that the flavour of this tea is not very complex, but it is unlike any other green tea I have ever tasted. The only tea that reminds me of the fresh leaf flavour is a cheap Tieguanyin that I bought last November and stored in the freezer for the past 6 months. The Tieguanyin absorbed too much moisture because it was not properly sealed, and became very vegetal, but not in the pleasant way of this tea. It is so tippy, and the chaqi is of such a quality that I feel this tea may have been somewhat expensive. Another indication of quality is the number of infusions. I don't think I have ever gotten this much tea or chaqi out of so little green tea leaf. My friends father bought two bags and kept one. I hope he didn't spend much on me, but am flattered either way. May have to give some of it away in order to finish it before it looses these great attributes. If any of my readers really want to try Yuexi Cuilan, I would consider sending a bit, I don't know if you are allowed to mail the stuff under new Olympic China Post rules, but the regulations should be relaxed by the end of next months.

Wuniuzao Buying Expedition

2008-09-01T07:31:00.000-07:00

I went with my friend into the hills of Wuniu village to purchase some of the tea of the same name for sale in his shop. There are small tea gardens all over Wuniu. It is not the same as large tea producing areas in China. Wuniuzao is not a internationally or even nationally famous tea. While it is certainly far from unknown, most of it is sold locally. Because of this, you wont find the same sort of monoculture you would find in places like Anxi(where Tieguanyin is produced) or many places in Yunnan, for example. Even in other parts of Wenzhou, specifically Taishun and parts of western Yueqing where Yandang maofeng has much larger areas of concentrated tea cultivation. The second picture is a Buddhist temple with Wuniuzao in the foreground. This may or may not be grown by the monks, I did not inquire within.

After passing many beautiful sights on the road, we came upon the house of the farmer. Unfortunately the colour of the tea had turned a bit yellow. It was sweet, and still good green tea, but it is harder to sell if the colour is changed, especially when the buyer is giving it as a gift. Colour, leaf shape, entire leaves, as well as short young buds are all important.

Unfortunately, I left the house in a hurry, and neglected to change the camera batteries, so after attempting to take one picture, I had to make do with my cell phone camera.

New Tea - 午牛早

2008-08-02T22:21:00.001-07:00

These photographs are from this past march when my friend was processing his freshly harvested Wuniuzao.

A basket of 茶青, or the green, unprocessed tea buds.

The tea dryers are from Hangzhou. They make 龙井 or Dragonwell tea. The younger one is a welder in the off season. Tea is highly seasonal (obviously) and even if your tea must be harvested four times a year, there is still a significant amount of time off. They are only here because Wuniuzao is harvested at least a month before Dragonwell. They have plenty of time to get back before it starts.

I am learning how to make green tea. I didn't do a very good job, but gave up early so as not to interrupt. My friend, Xiaoguang is convinced that its a great idea to have these guys making the tea by hand outside the shop as a sort of advert.

This is my wife and Xiaoguang's wife Xiaohong outside their larger teashop in Baixiang. Note the tea processors are staring at them.

Khroler's Camellia Thea

2008-07-22T07:54:00.000-07:00

This is the picture of Camellia Sinensis from Kohler's Medicinal Plants. It is a high quality JPEG file of a decidedly beautiful piece of chromolithograpy, and one of my favorite plants. You can find it at the Wikipedia tea page.

中国历代茶书汇编

2008-07-22T02:00:00.000-07:00

I bought this handsome 2 volume set while in Guangzhou. I had seen it in Hong Kong, but didn't buy it due to the hefty price: $420 HK, which is more than $60US. When I saw it again on my way back through Guangzhou I knew I was fated to buy the book, so I went ahead and splurged. It is really not terribly expensive for a two volume set of over 1000 pages with notes on all the texts. All texts are in Traditional Graphs, just the way they were written.

I hope to translate and post some texts from this book soon. I have started on the "record of clarifications on water," (大明水记) but no progress recently.

Tea Pig

2008-01-06T07:12:00.000-08:00

This is my new Yixing Teapot. It is sort of a novelty what with the pig theme and all, but the workmanship is pretty nice, the lid fits very well, pours well, and I find it quite attractive in composition. It is made of black zisha clay, and the pig on the top has 'fu' characters on it. I am using it for Shou Pu-erh, and I find it really brings out the flavors in a tea I had previously only brewed in a gaiwan. I can't wait to go to Yixing!

My Second Tea Tree

2007-12-19T04:20:00.000-08:00

I went climbing in the hills again today, and am very proud of myself because I identified my first Wild Tea Tree without the guidance of anyone else. It is a good season for this as There are flowers now (at least this at this altitude and latitude. I don't know about anywhere else.) The fresh leaves smelled a little bit like evergreen with a touch of menthol, but mostly very vegetal, and not much like tea at all! The flowers were a lot smaller than I had originally imagined them. I have a picture of a tea flower in one of my books about Pu-erh where the Tea flower looks to be about the size of a child's fist(with no size reference present), but the flowers I saw were nickel to quarter size. The picture is probably just an enlargement, although it was a picture of a Yunnanese Ancient Tea Tree, which has bigger leaves than the variety in Zhejiang, and the plant I saw was just a bush, while many of the trees pictured in the book were hundreds to tens of hundreds of years old and are full blown trees. Walking in the hills is a great time for thinking things over and having fantasies and I thought about wild tea and how I must roam through all of the mountains looking for wild tea trees, collecting tea leaves and processing my own tea. I bet it would be really hard to make anything worth drinking without a proper drying device. The tea bush I saw brought to mind an article I saw on the Cha Dao blog The Role of Stress in Tea Growth and Manufacture. The author says that Tea Plants subject to stress of various sorts make better tea. I bet the plant I saw today would make great tea as it was totally torn up by insects.

Sorry about the picture quality. The first one is focused on the background, the second one is not great either, but I took them with my cellphone, so c'est la vie.

Flower Tea or Tea Flowers?

2007-12-17T04:37:00.000-08:00

Today I went out climbing for the second day in a row. I like to climb the mountains in this region of China (southern Zhejiang province) because although they are not all that high (the highest point in this county is about 4000 ft.) The Yandang 雁荡山 are one of China's most famous mountains, and also the mountains that inspired Xie Lingyun to begin writing nature poetry when he fell from favor in the imperial capital and was banished to the provinces. It was here roving in the Yandang mountains that he established his style of poetry that was later recognised as the origin of Mountains and Rivers Poetry 山水诗, possibly the most well known of Chinese poetry. This area is also one of the most developed in Zhejiang province, and is very noisy with the clamour of industry. Sometimes, if orders require it, little factories right outside my window run all day and all night. So, the mountains just a 10 minute ride from my dwelling in a 3-wheeled motorized taxi, are a welcome respite.

Today, I climbed past the point which I had reached yesterday. There were concrete paths leading up to near the ridge at which point the concrete gave way to old stone paths worn almost flat where it wasn't too steep. The stone continued a ways and then gave out becoming packed earth, very hard, but muddy in places and probably unpleasant in the rainy season. Almost everywhere is terraced fields, especially in eastern provinces. Zhejiang is also the most densely populated province in China. The terraces are largely unused now. With the abundance of industry and the jobs that it creates, many have given up the bitter life of toil that living off the fruits of mountain terraces often entails. I did, however, see one man on my way up who was coming down with a load of pine needles and kindling on a shoulder carrying pole. After passing through the terraced area, I re-entered the forest. In the forest, I passed a few abandoned houses, the one pictured below being the last, and then suddenly came out into a cleared area.

Unfortunately I didn't take pictures of what transpired next. I was happy to find a Taoist Temple with three men seated outside shooting the breeze. There was one old Taoist priest who could only speak the local dialect and two visitors who raised goats near the foot of the mountains. The old man asked if I wanted some water, and I said yes if it wasn't a bother. He brought out three cups of flower tea for his three guests. I expressed my happiness with the flower tea as I find it more thirst quenching than regular tea after perspiring. I was corrected. This was not flower tea, but tea flowers. I have drunk many kinds of flower tea: osmanthus, chrysanthemum, rose, jasmine to name a few, but never tea flower tea. I requested to see a tea tree and was brought to a nearby one on the path I had come on. There were more of the same flowers and the old Taoist explained to me that the best teas were the wild ones made from the leaf tips and that he would make me a pound of it this coming spring. I am not sure I want a whole pound of this poor old man's tea. He might be able to sell the tea, not to mention drink it himself or serve it to his guests. Although this man looks rather old, he has no trouble moving about; but collecting and drying a pound of wild tea could probably take a week or two unless there was an area of more concentrated tea trees. What I would like to do is go back and help him for a couple of days and maybe take home some tea made with my own hands. I already have about 3 ounces of hand picked tea flower tea that he insisted I take home with me (pictured). The flowers are now drying on the porch. I wish I could take a picture of the scent.

The Legend of Qizi Bing Cha

2007-11-18T22:39:00.000-08:00

(Seven Sons Tea Cake)

Translated from The Classics of Pu'er page 54

Legend has it that in present day Kunlu mountain in Kuanhong village, Fengyang town, Pu'er city there once lived a family surnamed Lu who were very poor and grew tea for a living. In this family there were seven sons and one daughter. The oldest son was called Ailao¹; the second, Bulang²; the third, Jinuo³; the fourth, Awa⁴; the fifth, Aini⁵; the sixth, Lahu⁶; the seventh, Wuliang⁷. The daughter was the smallest, she was called Hani.⁸
The old man Lu hoped his sons would all grow and process tea, that is to say make a living in the tea business. But because of the families poverty, they hadn't the means to buy a piece of land in the mountain forest. The old man became so worried about this that it affected his heart and he became so ill that he could not get out of bed, and was on the verge of death.
On the 49th day, the seventh son Wuliang came to a place in the rain forest far from his home while out to collect medicine for his father. He inadvertently came upon a huge tea tree, and there picked no few leaves for his tea loving father. Little did he suspect that after old man Lu drank the wild tea, he miraculously escaped from the clutches of death, and the next day he got up and was back to work.
After receiving his seventh son Wuliang's rejuvenating wild tea, old man Lu began to think, "we don't have the money to buy a patch of forest on the mountain, but in the old forests in the deep mountains isn't there plenty of that wonderful wild tea?" After this every day he had his sons each go their own route into the deepest mountains to gather tea. The seven brothers followed the Lancang (Mekong) river valley, walking farther and farther as they went.
After a while, each of the seven brothers had his own tea collecting route and area. Each prospered and multiplied on his own land, as not only grandsons and later generations all grew tea, but also influenced the local people to grow tea as well. Thus today we have Ailao mountain, Bulang mountain, Jinuo mountain, Awa mountain, Aini mountain, Lahu mountain, and Wuliang mountain. Old man Lu and his daughter Hani stayed at Kunlu mountain also in the tea trade, the old couple calling the tea their beloved daughter harvested and processed "Daughter Tea."
Because his sons were usually busy with their work, they could only return to Pu'er once a year on their parents birthday. Knowing that their parents loved tea as they loved their very lives, the brothers would always bring their best leaf home for their parents. The road home was long, and the tea leaf was exposed to damp and squeezed and crushed into cakes by the time they reached Pu'er, but the flavor was somehow better than when first processed.
The old couple valued the tea their sons brought twice as much and stored it at home in bamboo shells. When guests came, they would always serve this tea. The guests would always praise the tea endlessly after tasting it and when they asked where the tea came from and what it was called, the old people would proudly point to the bamboo shells and tell the guests, "This was made by our seven sons."
Thenceforth, "Seven sons pay respects on their parents birthday" and "Seven sons tea cake" became tales on everyone's lips in that locale. P'uer sever sons tea cake became more famous with each telling. Many tea men and tea merchants were drawn by the story, and were pointed towards the Lu family. The filial sons in order to enable their father to store and trade tea more easily pressed them into rounds of uniform size with a small depression in the back. The weight was seven taels, five qian. The round shape symbolized the full moon, which implies a harmonious family all united in the same place.⁹ The hollow in the back represented the home of the seven brothers and their parents. As for the weight of the cakes, the seven taels symbolized the seven brothers, the five qian represented the self out of the seven brothers.¹⁰
As a memorial to their tea producing fore bearers, the people of the Lu clan, descendants of the seven brothers built a tower at the east gate of Pu'er in memory of their ancestors, the inventors of Pu'er tea. They called it the eastern tower. It was eighteen stories tall representing eighteen generations of their family. The base of the tower was nine stories, the first story representing the ancestors who first entered the tea business. The next seven stories represented the seven brothers, the ninth represented Hani. The top nine stories represent their sons, grandsons and their descendants generation after generation, flourishing, prosperous and never declining.

¹ Each of these names is equivalent to the name of a mountain in Southwestern Yunnan, most of them also a name for a language or small ethnic group or subgroup. The Ailao mountain range is part of the territory of the Hani

² A language spoken by a total of 37,200 people in "Southwestern Yunnan Province, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, and the Simao and Lincang regions. Most live in Menghai and Shuangjiang counties. Some are scattered, living among Va (Wa). Also spoken in Myanmar, Thailand" quoted from the ethnologue report, Bulang

³ 13,000 speakers in "South Yunnan, Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, near Laos and Myanmar borders, 53 kilometers east of Jinghong. Youle Mountains. 40 villages. Over 3,000 square kilometers." quoted from the ethnologue report, Jinuo

⁴ this is also a mountain range. see the ethnologue report, Awa Awa Mountains, southwest Yunnan as far east as the Lancang (Mekong) River." this is the home of the Wa people in China. Awa is also a dialect of the Wa language.

⁵ "'Aini' may be the same as the Yani dialect of Hani." the ethnologue report, Aini

⁶A larger language the ethnologue report, Lahu

⁷ A website about wuliang mountain nature preserve in Chinese. There is an English version of this website, but no Wuliang mountain page in English. There is a great page on the Akha/Hani that mentions Wuliang mountain when it says the Akha/Hani "are mainly distributed in the Ailao Shan and Wuliang Shan mountains, and in the mountains and valleys of Mojiang, Babianjiang, and Lancangjiang districts."
There is another story about a man named Wu Liang who invented the Oolong processing method for tea. He lived in Fujian however, not Yunnan. This legend can be found at the end of this article.
⁸ Hani is one of the officially recognized 55 ethnic minority peoples in the Peoples Republic of China. it is also a language.

⁹ The full moon has always represented family for the Chinese, especially in ancient poems where a full moon appearing in a description of a landscape is a metaphor for a person far from home, lonely and missing their family.

¹⁰ 'Five' sounds like 'myself' in Chinese.

2007-11-18T22:30:00.000-08:00

I just found this article about an earthquake in Pu'er this summer. I was suprised that with all of the searching about this term and reading blogs about it I have done since then I might have heard of this before now. Other Pu'er fans probably heard all about this a long time ago. In June I did not have ready access to the internet.
Shanghai Daily Pu'er Earthquake Article

xinhua article

Menghai 2000 Pu'er Qizi Bing

2007-11-18T08:08:00.000-08:00

I bought a whole case of year 2000 Menghai gold bud Pu'er Qizi cakes while in Guangzhou on my way back from getting a new passport in Hong Kong. The leaves are of the super special quality level(teji.) The tea Market is huge, I've heard tell the largest in the country, and probably the largest in the world too. It's more of a Tea Section of the city than a marketplace as it consists of several streets of wholesale shops surrounding a market, which is more expensive.

I tried the tea for the third time yesterday, and took some pictures. I brewed it 5 times using the gongfu method and took pictures, but forgot how many more times I brewed it after that. Although pu'er has less caffeine than certain green teas, I did manage to get quite a caffeine kick out of it as I was drinking it by myself.

I was sitting on my large 6th floor balcony pouring and drinking the tea while reading Forgotten Kingdom by Peter Goullart and looking out on the cloudy landscape of a rural village turned urban too quickly, a phenomena quite common now in this country. Although Forgotten Kingdom is not about tea, it is about the the area just north of the Pu'er growing and processing area. Xiaguan, the city just south of Lijiang is the just about the northern limit of the Pu'er growing and processing area.

This is a great tea for a cloudy autumn day. It is a full flavored pu'er, one can taste the age. smells a bit like hay in an old wooded barn in the late winter or early spring, not like new hay. The color is pleasingly brown, and opaque when deep, but becoming very translucent when shallow. The buds can be seen throughout the cake, not just on the outside.

Very pleased with this vintage. here is a picture of the second infusion, the liquor came out the darkest and strongest, which is how I like it.

The day before I took my cake up the mountain to a Taoist temple that my friend runs. He was very busy as he had to preform a service the next day, but he received me graciously as if he had nothing better to do, and we sat and drank first Rensheng wulong (Ginseng Oolong) then my Pu'er and finally a Tie Guanyin which he claimed cost 2,000 RMB or almost 300 US dollars a pound. Maybe I had drank too much tea already, or my palate is not developed enough to discern the more subtle pleasures of the perfect cuppa, but it seemed to me it wasn't as good as the stuff I had tried in Guangzhou (Canton) for a fraction of that. He said my Pu'er was horrible and could only be used as medicine. But then again he doesn't like pu'er at all. I told him his tea was the best I'd ever had.